You cut your Jeep in half! Madman! Great job so far. I bet it felt good to get that frame re-attached.

Yes it did! I will feel even better when I can finish the welding on the frame, get it off the jacks, and have it supporting itself. I need some time to sneak off to my garage while the Mrs is away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyle_craig

I love these TJ6 builds. I'll be sure to stay tuned!

I love them too! I got tired of drooling over Ziptie's TJ-6 pics.

Sandking: Let's hear it for more leg room! My daughter should complain less now... and let's not forget the all important ice cooler.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ef4life

Cool build can't wait to see it finished

Me too, although it might be a while...

Quote:

Originally Posted by G Beasley

The frame extensions look perfect , nice and square on each end . When I stretched my samurai I didnt add a brace and when I cut the frame it sprung in ... I was not happy getting it all lined back up .

I was really nervous about the frame springing offset. We really should have braced it all better before cutting it. I guess I got lucky.

Homeboy1991/dooboy2112: Thanks, guys!

Rubidriver: Believe me, I want to see progress too.

Ziptie: Thanks! I hope it ends up half as good as your TJ-6! If not, I will call it something else and go live my remaining years in shameful hiding.

Thank you for all the support and encouragement. It's great to share my enthusiasm for this project with you guys.

I took advantage of the long labor day weekend to squeeze some fabrication time in the garage and this is what I have...

Here are my full penetration welds at the splice joints. Just like the AEV Brute frame extension, I made two passes all the way around for all joints.
Driverís side:

Passengerís side:

In preparation for the fish plates, I ground down the welds flat.

These are the fish plates I used on the exterior faces; they reinforce the seam joint connections.

Welding these was no sweat!

The interior plates are designed to overlap the entire length of the extensions (Again, like AEV Brute method). I originally cut these too long and on one end, they clashed with the control arm mounts. I made the proper adjustments and stitch welded them on.

Welding the interior fish plates, especially under the cab, was challenging to say the least. It is tight and hard to see with a welding face shield. I am not going to lie, the passenger side welds are ugly. I will try to clean them up a bit with a grinder before I paint the frame.

Iíd like to think, the welds on the driverís side interior fish plate came out nicer. Lighting made all the difference. Also, I think I am getting better at welding while lying down.

That's all the progress I have thus far. I am going to clean the frame and paint it next. I will then install a 2.5" OME lift and design a new crossmember that will hopefully go with the new Savvy Aluminum Skid plate. Stay tuned!

On another build I read that they intentionally tried not to "over" reinforce the area because the frame is designed to flex and that too much reinforcement would amplify the flexing in front and behind the patch.

On another build I read that they intentionally tried not to "over" reinforce the area because the frame is designed to flex and that too much reinforcement would amplify the flexing in front and behind the patch.

I'm not sure how important that is, just repeating what I read.

Admittedly, I am going to lose a bit of flexure over all, but one has to take into account the following:

1. If the wall thicknesses were constant, a longer frame would increase flexure deflection, something not designed to by the original engineering of the short wheel base Wrangler. Therefore, by adding stiffening to just the extension, I am reducing reducing the net flexure to something comparable to the stock frame, albeit a bit stiffer because you have the fish plates extending a bit past the joint seams. Really, you have the rest of the existing frame length to flex as designed.

2. If I completely trusted my welds (I don't, I am not a proffessional welder), I could probably get away with just fish plating the splice joints and using shorter inserts. However, flexure at the welds can induce fatigue cracks on weld imperfections. Therefore, I chose to be conservative in my reinforcing.

Anyway, that is my rationale for going about it this way. Plus, it seems to work for the AEV Brutes.

It's the pdf instructions for the AEV Brute frame extension. Note they only have those long fish plates on the interior faces and their inserts are not quite as long as mine.

Like they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat and everyone has a different purpose for their rig so I am not saying my way or even AEV's way is the most correct. All the same, you now have a little food for thought. Thank you for your feedback.